{"id":8582,"date":"2022-03-06T12:12:19","date_gmt":"2022-03-06T12:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umuakatimes.com\/topnews\/?p=8582"},"modified":"2022-03-06T12:12:19","modified_gmt":"2022-03-06T12:12:19","slug":"the-dictators-gambit-what-putin-is-after-on-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umuakatimes.com\/topnews\/the-dictators-gambit-what-putin-is-after-on-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"The dictator\u2019s gambit: What Putin is after on Ukraine."},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span> 567<\/span> Views<\/span><\/div>

There is much in the news today about the \u201cUkraine crisis,\u201d and while I\u2019m glad to see that this major threat to the world order is finally worthy of attention, the naming gets it wrong. Ukraine doesn\u2019t have a civil war, an insurgency or a separatist movement. Ukraine\u2019s crisis is also Europe\u2019s and America\u2019s and now the world\u2019s. It is a Russia crisis, or, more accurately, a Vladimir Putin crisis.<\/p>\n

The United States and the rest of the world must get this right, because you cannot treat a disease if you start from the wrong diagnosis. You end up only treating the symptoms as they worsen, a downward spiral of reaction while the patient declines. What we need instead is a cure, a vaccine if you will.<\/p>\n

President Biden and his predecessors have varied in rhetoric on Putin, but have had a pathetically similar track record when it comes to action, or inaction. Instead of addressing the bear in the room, Putin\u2019s rogue mafia state, U.S. presidents and their peers in Europe prefer to fend off the worsening symptoms year after year.<\/p>\n

Since I have been warning about the danger of allowing Putin\u2019s cancer to spread for two decades, allow me a few \u201cI told you sos\u201d before getting to his latest appearance in the headlines. It was obvious to me that Putin would turn his aggression abroad as soon as he finished destroying Russian democracy and civil society. It\u2019s the path of every dictator who runs out of scapegoats inside the country to blame for declining freedom and standard of living.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s invasions of neighboring Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 were attacks on their nascent democracies, which he correctly saw as bad examples for the people of Russia. From assassinations in Europe with nuclear isotopes and nerve agents to election interference backing Brexit, Trump and extremist candidates across Europe, Putin has not stuck with his supposed ex-Soviet sphere of influence. This is what I meant when I wrote in 2007 that \u201cPutin is our problem to solve, yes, but if he is unopposed, he will soon be a regional problem and then everyone\u2019s problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was back when the leaders of the free world were still happy to pose in photos with \u201cPresident Putin,\u201d a few years before acknowledging he no longer deserved that democratic title. After rewarding his invasion of Georgia with Obama\u2019s reset in 2008, it took another six long years and his attack on Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea to rouse the world to the fact he had become \u201cDictator Putin\u201d and that there was no turning back.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then came Trump, whose envy of and admiration for authoritarians was possibly his only sincere and consistent sentiment. Biden\u2019s victory was supposed to herald a return to more traditional American foreign policy values after four years of Trump trying to drag the U.S. down to the amoral quid pro quo level of autocratic regimes.<\/p>\n

Instead, Biden repeated his former boss Obama\u2019s attempts to unilaterally declare peace with the man Biden accurately called \u201ca killer\u201d in March 2021. Instead of forceful deterrence, he elevated Putin with an early in-person summit, never explaining what exactly the U.S. needed from Russia other than to stop its campaign of aggression. Then the Biden administration came out on Putin\u2019s side in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline deal between Russia and Germany, a lifeline for Putin and an energy garrote around Europe\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n

Biden is supposedly more concerned about China, an actual superpower competitor, but Putin has proved again he will stamp about until he receives the attention he craves. Now he is preparing a blow that has forced Europe and the U.S. to cease their policy of \u201cWe don\u2019t talk about Vladimir.\u201d He has amassed a huge invasion force on all sides of Ukraine, a sovereign democratic nation, geographically the largest country in Europe (discounting Russia), parts of which have been occupied by Russia since it first invaded in 2014.<\/p>\n

Ukraine also contains 44 million Ukrainians, who are often forgotten during all these talks, exactly as Putin intends. He wants to be seen as the big boss making threats and deals, while Ukraine, which he doesn\u2019t even acknowledge as an independent country, is little more than a buffer, a poker chip on the geopolitical table.<\/p>\n

That Russia has to resort to brute force to buy a place at the table indicates how far the country has fallen under Putin\u2019s misrule. Russia has become a gas station with nukes, with record numbers of the young and educated population running for the exits. Its disastrous COVID-19 response, arguably the worst in the world \u2014 yes, even worse than America\u2019s \u2014 has crushed the population from the other demographic end thanks to an understandable lack of trust in the government and a lack of concern for human life by the regime.<\/p>\n

(It\u2019s no small irony that Putin\u2019s disinformation army spreads anti-vaccine propaganda in the U.S. and all over the world to stir up strife while being unable to convince Russians to get vaccinated.)<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s threat isn\u2019t just to Ukraine, although he still has his defenders abroad. He has even succeeded in uniting Tucker Carlson and Bernie Sanders, who both want Russia\u2019s fictional security concerns to be addressed.<\/p>\n

Instead of negotiating over what Putin wants, the free world must unite and fight hard to make sure he doesn\u2019t get anything he wants. Do not wait to retaliate for his next invasion; go after him and his oligarch mafia hard now to show him that this time he won\u2019t be able to evade, weaken and wait out sanctions.<\/p>\n

Reduce Putin\u2019s leverage by substituting the energy he uses for blackmail. Kick Putin\u2019s mafia state out of the international institutions it uses and abuses to spread corruption. Seize the hundreds of billions in assets he and his cronies hide in the West and kick out the oligarchs and their families. They use their looted money to buy friends and influence in the West, but it also gives these havens, especially the United Kingdom, tremendous leverage \u2014 should they have the courage to use it.<\/p>\n

Putin, always the gambler and bluffer, is betting they don\u2019t. He\u2019s been right so many times in the past, after all. This isn\u2019t to say Putin is some master strategist. He\u2019s no chess player, as I\u2019m qualified to say with confidence. He reads people, not the board, and he won\u2019t move until he\u2019s sure he will be able to claim victory thanks to his feckless opponents folding their superior hands. Putin relies on Europe and the U.S., despite their overwhelming military, financial and legal advantages, continuing their policy of \u201cdo nothing until you can say there\u2019s nothing you can do.\u201d
\nThat\u2019s why Putin is still occupying Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, not to mention parts of Georgia. Instead of acting quickly to defend his victims, the West dithered and blathered until they could say it was impossible to change things on the ground. Putin uses force first, then switches to calls for diplomacy and negotiation to solidify his gains. You could call it \u201ca piece, then peace,\u201d a tactic of 20th-century dictators.<\/p>\n

But eventually the dictator goes too far. His finely tuned animal instincts of self-preservation and danger become blunted by too much success and he oversteps, leading to catastrophe. You never know when that moment may come, which is why the concept of deterrence during the Cold War was based on standing up to every small advance, so that little conflicts did not turn into big wars. And it worked.<\/p>\n

More Russian forces are arriving from all sides every day. Putin has even brandished the unthinkable specter of nuclear weapons, the ultimate ploy to convince everyone he\u2019s mad, and to just give him whatever he wants. His success with these tactics is how we got to this perilous point.
\nBut Putin is a KGB man, a bully and a spy who traffics in shadows and doubt, not open war. As he has in Syria, Moldova and so many other places, he wants influence and chaos, not an open conflict he may lose. For as he well knows, that is how dictatorships fall, by looking fallible, vulnerable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If Putin plays it safe, he will look for deniability, to claim victory without risk to his power and status. The modern hybrid war model his Russia invented will expand, with cyber-attacks, disinformation, and the weaponization of refugees and energy supplies. Belarus may lose the little independence it had while eyes are elsewhere. That will also allow cowardly Western leaders to claim that their tough talk did the job while Ukraine still suffers under debilitating occupation. They will all declare victory from well-appointed tables and at well-attended press conferences, while the real losers are those living under Putin\u2019s violence and repression.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Russian gas and oil will continue to flow out and the rivers of cash will continue to swirl, filling the pockets of Putin\u2019s oligarchs, their corrupt enablers in the West, and loading the guns of Russia\u2019s security and military forces so they\u2019ll be better prepared next time. And there will be a next time, and a next, until Putin goes too far \u2014 or until the world decides he has gone far enough.
\nUkraine has already suffered a high price and anything is possible in the coming days. The only thing we can be sure of is that if we fail to stand up to Putin now, the price will keep going up.
\nGarry Kasparov contributed this piece to New York Daily News.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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